Influence of Certain Hypnotic Suggestions upon a Type of Visual Illusion: Preliminary Report
| Autor: | Rosemarie K. Moore, André M. Weitzenhoffer |
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| Rok vydání: | 1960 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Perceptual and Motor Skills. 11:137-137 |
| ISSN: | 1558-688X 0031-5125 |
| DOI: | 10.2466/pms.1960.11.2.137 |
| Popis: | The present report is concerned with an attempt to "objectify" suggested hallucinations, so-to-speak, and determine the level of "reality" such experiences have. For this purpose, we have made use, among other things, of visual illusions which depend for their existence upon the presence of certain specific elements about which hypnotic suggestions can be given. Twenty-six Ss capable of developing a good deep hypnosis were selected by means of the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale ( 1 ) and given equal opportunity to experience a large variety of hypnotic phenomena. They were then presented with a number of visual illusions, one set of which has been described best by Orbison ( 2 ) . It consists in the distortion of geometrical figures by the presence of specific ground patterns, e.g., the Zelner Illusion. Any major alteration of the ground will destroy the illusion. Our experimental procedure briefly, has been to present first a blank card to the hypnotized S, then a card with a cross on it, followed by some cards with small transluscent windows both with and without designs on them and next superimposed upon the first two cards. Each time S is told what he is going to be shown. Following this practice session, S is told that he is again going to be shown a blank card, but chis time a card with a test ground pattern on it is actually shown. If S experienced this suggested "negative" hallucination completely, on nearly so, various test figures were then superimposed upon the "negatedw grounds. Twelve Ss in all, each completely naive with regard to the illusion and each capable of experiencing it under normal conditions, did not experience it when they negated the grounds. To these 12 we feel justified in adding two others belonging to an earlier comparable sample, bringing the total to 14. This represents about 10% of the student population from which we normally obtain Ss. It therefore appears that under conditions which we feel were free of contamination, suggestions aimed at negating a certain visual experience have a "reality" at such a level as to affect the existence of a visual illusion which has been generally believed to depend upon definite retinal and cortical processes. W e offer the present data as preliminary evidence in support of the contention that not all hypnotic behavior is pretense or role-playing, that hypnotic experiences in the form of hallucinations can have a reality comparable to that of actual events and objects, and that it is possible to study subjective phenomena in an objective manner. W e must, however, re-assert that both our data and conclusions are tentative and partial, and we reserve our final conclusions to such a time as our study will have been completed. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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